


Touching Through Glass

by elegantanagram (Lir)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Also of a sort, Exhibitionism, Hand Jobs, Illustrated, John's Disembodied Arm, M/M, Mostly this is porn starring John's disembodied arm, POV Third Person, Semi-Anonymous Sex, Smuturday, Unresolved Feelings, Which are somewhat addressed, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:00:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Oh, hey, it's a disembodied hand floating through space, no big deal, Dave can roll with that. It'd be pretty great if the hand didn't want to grab his sweet godtier cape and nearly pull him over backwards, but manners must not be a big thing in the handbook on how to be a ghostly apparition of a limb.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touching Through Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this week's [smuturday](http://smuturday.tumblr.com/faq) as begun by [Sinny]() on tumblr. This time in collaboration with [Ven.](http://madragingven.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I seriously just wanted to write porn involving John's disembodied hand after the latest update, especially once Ven did [some pretty hilarious update art.](http://madragingven.tumblr.com/post/47263144661/egbert-seriously-what-the-fuck)
> 
> The underage warning seriously applies, I set this up so that the version of Dave that John happens upon is from the point in time just after Dave and Rose arrive on the meteor. So Dave is thirteen. This might be kinda hard to ignore.

-

John has to be imagining that the circle of gray trollish faces around him are egging him on. Aranea's expression rarely varies from the calm facade of the benevolent storyteller, and Meenah's "just try me" smirk is more of a permanent feature than a specific challenge. There's something a bit creepy about Aradia's manic grin, but who cares. John is asleep; even if the glowing whatsit on the floor blows him to goopy ectoplasmic bits, he'll just wake up back on the ship, no harm done. 

He's not even thinking about those troll girls, he's really not, he's just hovering his hand over the cool incandescence of the weapon, ready to take the plunge. 

It's not warm, exactly, from two inches away. It's more of a low fizzy buzz that plucks at his skin before his fingers even make contact, and then he shoves his hand through. Now he's really playing with portals. There's no way John wasn't going to try this, not with some freaky weird extradimensional object hanging at his disposal, even without Vriska's goading. She doesn't count – she goads everybody, John's catching on to that – this is his own bright idea. 

When John reaches though, he doesn't feel anything right away. His fingers make no contact and he isn't touching anything; in that regard he might as well be reaching into nothing more exciting than a deep paper bag. But his arm tingles all the way up to where he can see his elbow disappearing into the light of the device. It's a multitude of sensations all at once, feels like freezing air blowing on his skin and hot heat warming his flesh and a funny prickling sensation that he has no frame of reference for, milder than the pins and needles of a limb falling asleep but equally strange. 

It's pretty cool, really, and he leans forward to dig around with his hand for some clue as to where it's reaching. 

John's fingers close on cloth, heavy and yielding under his hand. He fists them up in what feels like velvet, and the weird fuzzing along his arm, cool and sticky and damp and electric all at once, it doesn't stop. But all his hand feels is the fabric he's grabbed a hold of, and he yanks on it, trying to figure out what he's touching. 

It's not that John hears anything, not besides the low ambient noise of the chamber he descended into with Vriska's pirate crew, or besides the low muttering he thinks Vriska is still making. But there's a little shiver under his hand, and it reminds him of Dave, brings to mind a string of red characters inquiring of him, "yo egbert what the fuck." 

John finger-crawls his way up whatever he's holding, fabric with the same cuddly-thick texture as his godtier hood. Dave and Rose went godtier, too, after they delivered the tumor, didn't they? He hasn't seen Dave in such a long time, hasn't been able to talk to him on pesterchum, not the original Dave prime who isn't a flying orange cheeto with a weird ghost butt. Dave Sprite is cool, but so is John's original best bro. John can just imagine Dave sitting around in godtier pajamas, informing all of their troll friends about how rad his godjammy swag is. 

He can feel where the fabric starts to bunch up, gathered together to secure it around something, and then his fingers prod against a more yielding surface that has to be skin. John prods it again, curls his fingers against it until they lie flat and close, keeps poking because he's on a valiant quest to figure out _what this is_ and hey, it's not there's much chance he'll get in trouble for it! 

There's the little imaginary ping of the pester window again, this time announcing, "what the hell man somebody needs to stop jabbing my neck that is serious levels of uncool."

John gropes his hand up, and his palm falls flat against the cool, smooth shape he knows undeniably is an aviator lens. He pats the face around it. And he _grins._

Hell yes, John just reached through an extradimensional portal in space and all he found was this lousy (awesome!) Dave Strider. 

-

It's all kinds of cool and shit that he and Rose got to blast off into nullspace with a bunch of aliens who they met on the internet, but after a mere handful of days of asteroid cohabitation, all Dave wants is a hot minute to get himself set up solo. Their asteroid is huge and cavernous, the bowels of which are full of countless untold horrors that Dave hasn't had the time to explore and can by no means assure he'll ever give enough of a shit about to properly venture off into. Despite this, somehow, he's hardly spent a minute without Rose or Terezi or Karkat in his immediate vicinity. 

Dave knows he's a popular guy, but they could give a dude a little breathing space. 

And now there's a hand on his face.

This isn't what Dave was going for when he designated some alone time. After all of his experiences in the game, there are very few things that still seem weird. Oh, hey, it's a disembodied hand floating through space, no big deal, Dave can roll with that. It'd be pretty great if the hand didn't want to grab his sweet godtier cape and nearly pull him over backwards, but manners must not be a big thing in the handbook on how to be a ghostly apparition of a limb. 

When the hand gets all up and familiar patting at his cheek, that's enough for another snarky little protest. Dave gets as far as "Hands off the merchandise" before a ghostly finger pokes him in his open mouth. 

Rude. Maybe the ghost limb handbook preaches the opposite of manners. 

Dave grabs the arm around its wrist and pulls it away from his face. There's some resistance, but it feels more like a contrary objection to being thwarted than an effort to get more intimately familiar with the shape of his tongue. If anything, the hand was already flinching away from the wet of his mouth.

He can imagine John typing at him, "eww, gross, dude. now i've got your slimy spit on my hand, yuck."

That's a weird thought. Dave isn't sure why he's having it. 

John is the one who loves paranormal shit, who has a minor fixation on how neat ghosts are and who has an unironic love for Ghostbusters in all its dubious cinematographic excellence. (Yeah, yeah, Egbert, Ghostbusters is cool. Dave is not hating on the Ghostbusters.) Ghosty shit makes Dave think of John, what can he say. But when he lets go of the arm and leaves his hand hanging in the air, when the ghost-hand drifts forward to press theirs together palm-to-palm, before it insinuates itself around Dave's hand to give him a cheeky little shake... He thinks he gets it. 

Yeah, sure, John's hand is poking out at him through a halo of dim blue light, Dave can roll with that. 

He even gives John's disembodied hand a shake back, just to be mannerly. 

"Where's the rest of you, Egbert?" he asks the hand. "Did you fall face-first through some ghost portal and forget to bring everything else along?" 

Dave isn't surprised when John's arm doesn't say anything back, because it is a disembodied fucking arm. He lets go of John's fingers, and isn't surprised when the hand drifts forward, curling against his cheek one more time. 

"Not the face, Egbert, jeez, what did I tell you. Anything but the face." 

Dave doesn't bother to push the hand away, though. He's already committed to giving John the most epic of brohugs when they get done with their three year travel stint, dirty wifebeaters and all. He's going to hug the shit out of John, maybe impart a few entirely ironic snuggles as part of the package. But three years is a motherfucking long time. It'd be downright unconscionable to reject the inquiring touch of a friend now, in the present.

Dave would equate it to meeting a blind person, this gentle touch along the curve of his cheek and over his chin, the light fingers dragging down his throat to map face and neck for eyes that are absent. Except he already knows one blind girl and this isn't her style. Blind girls just give one good lick and consider him accounted for. It seems blind Egberts are a lot more persistent about their how-do-you-do's. 

It's fucking weird, but Dave can roll with it. It's a hand on his chest, palm pressing flat over the gear symbol before fingers move to trace around its edges, following the subtle difference in texture to work out the shape. It's a heavier drag of John's hand back across one pectoral, the weight of it when it curls around his shoulder and squeezes, when it follows down the length of his arm from shoulder to elbow to wrist. 

It really is taking account, Dave thinks, like John is making sure all the parts of him are there. 

It's a proprietary touch. There's nothing really mannered or hesitant about it, just a straightforward demarcation of his planes and angles, a casual following of the lines of his body over chest and arms and back again to make sure that everything is where it should be. And that's just like John. Of course there isn't a damn thing personal about tenderly touching up on another dude's abdominals. He's just Dave, a known quantity, certain to the point where John has the right to verify the shape of him. John has the unwavering authority of true broship. 

This isn't a very bromantic activity. John's hand tries to ruffle up Dave's hair when it drifts back up to Dave's face, tries to pluck Dave's shades off the bridge of his nose. Dave pushes at it, snorting a protest, and John's arm pokes him in the cheek with one finger. That part's comfy, fucking with each other like John is here in the entirely-whole flesh and they're just messing around because that's a thing friends should get to do. But then the poke turns into a caress, a lingering drag of palm over cheek, and it could be a joke but they've never had a means for hands-on gay chicken before. 

It's probably just in Dave's head. 

It's John, even if it's just an arm, even if he's a doofus. He has to be pulling some stupid thirteenth-hour game-based bullshit, which means he has no idea what he's doing, and means he'll just barrel on fueled by eager curiosity and intuition. Dave can take disembodied arms in stride, but this must be some huge novelty for John. He's getting handsy because he's a disembodied goddamn hand, it's the only thing he can do and who's gonna stop John from at least doing something? 

John's hand is reaching under his cape, following down the shape of Dave's spine in resumed exploration. His fingers press down just hard enough to feel right, like thumbs digging into muscle for a really satisfying massage. Dave arches his back, and it's unexpectedly surprising when John's fingers do knead at him. Not enough to unknot muscles, not in a way that would be useful if he were really tense, but friendly and insistent and personal, massaging his lower back with these slow motions that start to feel exceedingly _intimate._

Dave makes a little noise in the back of his throat, god, that's way more casual familiarity than he's ever been accustomed to. 

The territory this is wandering into just took a hard spike up in its treachery. Dave can bleat that it's just John messing with him and being friendly until the cows come home, fidgeting where he sits and not pulling John's arm away from himself, but his traitorous brain is choosing not to buy that. Sure, it's the cheapest product on sale and Dave is stupid not to just put it in his cart and check it out, but sometimes a guy falls prey to loftier wants. Who's going to take the frozen burrito when they're staring at the possibility of lobster tail and lo, it might even be possible to swing a discount. 

The metaphor is getting away from him. 

John's hand is getting away from him, growing bored with the back massage and ducking under Dave's armpit to loop back around to front. There's a palm against Dave's belly, warm and increasingly familiar and yet _weird_ enough to make the muscles in his stomach jump with uncertainty. He breathes very slowly. John pets his stomach, and it feels like a patronizing reassurance. There, there, Dave, your heart doesn't need to beat that fast. It's just John, what are you getting all worked up for? 

John's hand stumbles lower for a second, settling for that moment against Dave's lap, and he can almost buy that it's an accident. Whoops, haha, didn't mean to let my hand fall on your crotch, Dave! He can practically hear the meter of John's metaphorical prankster's gambit daring to creep up. Joke's on him, though, it's not Dave's fault at all that John just grabbed himself a palmful of swelling strider salami. 

Fuck, that's kind of mortifying.

Dave grabs John's arm around the wrist, ready to pull John's hand the fuck away from the boner he's prepared to pretend really never happened at all. Except who is he going to pretend to, John isn't here, it's just his goddamn arm and an arm can't get on Dave's case about how this is totally "no homo." It's a moment of indecision, Dave's hand clamped vicelike around John's arm, and it dawns on him gradually that John hasn't jerked his hand away from Dave's junk any more than Dave has followed-through prying him off. 

Dave loosens his grip on John's arm, pats the back of his hand, and lets go. He's waiting, morbidly curious, to see where this goes next. John's hand feels warm, even through the fabric of his godtier pants, weighing down on what is quite obviously Dave's dick, but just _waiting_ there. It pats his boner, once, twice, and Dave thinks that it's being a frustrating little shitheap. 

If John doesn't have the decency to at least be sheepish about it, oh no I accidentally touched your cock, haha, wow, that's awkward, let me pull my hand back right now, the least he could do is just. Fuck. Dave grabs John's wrist again, pushes John's hand forward and down.

Yeah, that's his boner, feel free to do something about it. Shit or get off the pot. 

John's disembodied hand rubs him through his pants and, fuck, he was somehow still not expecting the follow through. Dave quickly lets go, leaving the arm with the freedom of motion to really do what it wants with him. That turns out to be little more than grinding its palm against his dick through the fabric, following the outline of Dave's boner through the boundary of cloth. It's a stupid, shitty tease of a touch, but he's never had another person's hand on him so fuck objecting on those grounds. 

Dave's hips roll up, and he braces his arms behind himself for better balance, better leverage. He pushes up against the hand lightly fondling him, a wordless demand for greater contact that he wouldn't know how to articulate even if there was a whole person here for him to voice it to. John's hand rubs against him harder in response, and then dips down inside the front of his pants. 

There are fingers wrapping around his cock, fingers that aren't his, and Dave breathes in sharp, struggling not to make a noise. He learned how to keep quiet fast, living in the environment he did with the brother he had. But there's an unfamiliar steady touch stroking him and he wants to groan hard in the back of his throat with wanting encouragement. He settles for whining a little, softly, as that hand jerks him off. 

It's pretty weird, Dave hasn't forgotten that. The first two long strokes are slow, testing, like feeling out the shape of his cock and figuring out what's there for working with. But once the hand gets a nice hold on him it gets comfortable, jerking him at an even, friendly pace. That part is nice. What's disconcerting is watching John's hand slide up and down on his dick, and then watching John's arm terminate in a glowing spot of blue luminescence. What's frustrating is that there's nothing for him to touch, or do, it's just this hand working him over and all he can manage is to clench his fingers against the floor and try not to buck up too hard. 

Dave is kind of loathe to admit it, but John might be better at this than he is. He's been acquainting himself with his spam porpoise for a little while now, and he thinks that he and his man-meat have been getting pretty comfy with each other. He knows what he likes, what sort of grip and what sort of pace. But the hand stroking him now is a little steadier, a little surer, and it's entirely unaffected by Dave's rising pleasure so that it doesn't falter and lose the pace when he gets close and starts trying to go too fast. 

The hand doesn't yield when it works Dave over. There's a patience to it, this quiet determination to get him off that compliments the even, gradually quickening speed. The thumb slides over his head, casual, coaxing, and Dave is breathing tightly but at least he hasn't turned into an entire orchestra of needy sounds. Just the occasional little whine, isolated pant, or surprised sound when in spite of the regular pace his hips jerk up in a moment of almost-feels-too-good. 

In the end, Dave knows it didn't last very long, although he'll pretend that he didn't come with a suddenness that briefly transformed him into a shuddery, shaking mess. 

He's aware of John's hand wiping his jizz off on his pants against the inside of his thigh. 

He doesn't really care. 

He just got a handjob from his best friend. The thought still feels strange and improbable, like an event that was never expected to transpire. John is a delicate blossom of budding sexuality wrapped up in a cozy soil blanket of "not-a-homosexual," and as his best friend it's Dave's solemn responsibility to mind that garden with care. Nothing could suck worse than putting one of the moves on his best bro and transforming the comfortable familiarity of their friendship into awkwardness central. 

But in the wake of a pretty sweet orgasm and no awkwardness in evidence, he'd kind of like to kiss John on his ridiculous bucktoothed mouth. 

He can't. John isn't really there. All Dave has for company is a lonely arm just finishing up cleaning itself with his pants. On impulse, he wraps his hand around John's arm one more time. 

He gives the strongest yank he can manage, following through as far back as he can. 

-

John lets go of Dave, and for a moment he continues to feel powerful and smug. 

If Jade asked him that morning how he felt about possibly jerking Dave off, John's strongest emotion would have been confusion over why she or anyone would think to ask such a thing. He hasn't seen Dave in ages, that's stupid, he at least wants dinner and a movie before anyone starts taking off their pants! 

But he guesses he's not really opposed. 

He misses Dave, kind of a lot, to the point of grabbing all over him just to prove that it's really Dave given the merest opportunity, and in the face of Dave yanking John's hand back against his junk? He didn't even think about it. When else would he get the opportunity to touch somebody he likes across dimensions? It sounded like fun! 

His arm starts to tingle again. 

It feels funny, wrong, and John mumbles as much, but his voice doesn't come out right. He thought he felt Dave taking his hand, and he was thinking if Dave just let go of him, he should take his arm out of the portal. The noise around him sounds as if it's coming from underwater, or from a radio mis-tuned to the wrong frequency. He can't focus in on it. 

His surroundings zap out from under him, like an old television turning off, the picture closing down to that one point of light in the center before it's gone. He doesn't have time to freak out about it, because new surroundings open up under him, the picture coming back on in a transition that's eerily too smooth. 

Dave is sitting back on his hands with his dick drooping over the top hem of his pants in a room that is small and dim and gray, and now John is crouching across from him with his butt in the air, one of his hands poised awkwardly in mimicry of how he'd shoved it into the portal. Dave looks pink and flushed, and now John feels ridiculous. 

Dave also looks small, smaller than John realized when he was mapping Dave out without seeing him. His god pajamas look so new, although John isn't sure if his have weathered any with time. He looks off, not like John was expecting. 

"Goodness gracious and mercy me, Egbert," Dave says, fake-flustered southern charm. "Did you do all your aging for our three years in one go? How are you going to spend the rest of the trip now, man, I don't think the new universe can handle you getting any more oversized and lanky than you are right now." 

It's a joke, John knows that, but he has this niggling suspicion that Dave is genuinely off-put. He still feels funny, tingling, and he starts to sit back on his heels. He's confused and that makes it hard to come up with something witty to say, a way to tease Dave back. Dave gets up on his knees and leans toward him, and for a second John thinks that Dave is going to kiss him. 

Static fuzzes at the edges of John's vision, and the television picture cuts out again before Dave's lips can land. 

-

-


End file.
